Beat the Silent Drums of Death
by jiapryor
Summary: Troy Bolton is a good kid. Underneath his popular exterior, no one sees the boy pushing himself too hard. No one has stopped Troy from falling into a pit of despair. No one can save him when he steps closer to the edge. No one except his best friend.


**The characters in this are OOC. It is Troy-centric. This is pretty much AU. **

_**I own nothing except the plot.**_

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><p><strong>Introductions: <strong>

They all refer to you as the King of East High; the Playmaker; the spoiled brat of Coach Bolton. It doesn't necessarily bother you; you just cringe slightly whenever the name is shouted across the lunch room or the halls.

With each "hello, my name is," you don't get to finish because people just know who you are. It's like who you are—the general aspects of it—are inherent to the students of East High: Troy Bolton, captain of the basketball team, "superstar" kid of Jack Bolton, East High's basketball coach. The only person who you've properly introduced yourself to was your current best friend, and that was twelve years ago when you were four and a half years old.

Since then, no introductions have been made on your behalf, and you've yearned for one.

**Expectations: **

Everybody wants something out of you, and everybody expects something out of you. Your teammates expect your time to be divided between practicing with them, playing the games with them, and just hanging out with them—usually involving "shooting some hoops."

Darbus expects you to play the role of the popular jock and put up a fuss in her class. She expects you to stay slumped in your seat the entire period and just be a _slacker._

She's surprised when you walk into class before anybody. You sit down in silence and rub your temples in a soothing manner. You can see her look at your through her peripheral vision, and you just groan and put your head down into your now folded arms.

As soon as class starts, you lift your head and stare at Darbus as she goes on about her new idea of holding a fall musical for the students to participate in. Your hand is holding a pencil and jotting down notes in your _college ruled_ notebook about what she's saying to the class. You bend your head down to quickly scan over what you've written.

She abruptly stops in the middle of her rant to gaze at you questioningly. She opens her hand expectantly, and you hand over your notebook to her, knowing that she thought you were doodling while she was talking which would have been _just rude._

Her eyes widen in surprise as she attempts to decipher your scrawl on the paper. When she does figure out what the writing means, she gives you a tiny grin and nods her head in approval.

"That was quite unexpected, Mr. Bolton," she muttered in a melodramatic voice as she made her way to the back of the classroom.

"Expect the unexpected, Mrs. Darbus," you retort and continue to take notes.

**Unaware: **

"Bolton!" your father hollers from across the gym while you and the team practice. "Twenty-five suicides after practice for those lazy passes." As soon as those words spill from your father's mouth, he blows the whistle, and you forcefully chest pass the ball to Zeke.

Your attention snaps to your father, glaring at him while he reprimands your best friend in and outside of the court—Chad Danforth.

Your father doesn't know that you're in all advanced placement classes other than gym and drama. He doesn't know that you often stay up until two in the morning to finish the school work so you can credit your acceptance into colleges on academics rather than solely basketball. He doesn't know anything about your life other than basketball, and you want to tell him so badly, but you know you can't.

After the practice that seemed to drag on, you begin to head to the locker rooms with your teammates when your father calls you back.

"Yeah, dad?" you ask, breathing heavily.

"Not 'dad,'" Coach Bolton responds, "it's Coach to you while we're still practicing. You know that, Troy."

Sweat begins to glide down into your line of vision, and you take your practice jersey and wipe it off. Your eyes roam around the gym as you take in its emptiness.

"Coach, it's empty; everybody's in the locker rooms. I thought we were done."

Your father smiles pathetically at you. "Oh, they're done with practice. Remember those suicides earlier?" He holds his clipboard against his hip, and while you're contemplating your answer, your mind wonders what he has on the papers.

"Yes?" you answer as more of a question.

"Remember how many?" he asked in a sickeningly way.

"Twenty-five," you answer automatically as you start to fidget. The sweat is beginning to stick to your body, and it's uncomfortable.

"Now, Troy, it's fifty for the lapse of memory. Get to it," your father says nonchalantly. While he goes to sit on the bleachers, you begin your suicide(s).

**Family Time:**

Dinner was talkative between your parents…like always. The conversation between them flowed so easily while you sat there, grudgingly glaring at your grilled chicken and thick leaves of cabbage. The food remains untouched for the course of the meal, and your lips remain in a firm line, pressed together.

Your mother wipes her mouth daintily with her napkin, sets her fork down, and grips your upper arm gently. When she feels you retreat slightly from her touch, she settles to herself and looks at your father—her husband—before talking to you.

"How was your day today? Were classes okay?" She talks without moving her head, and not a single strand of hair moves from its designated place atop her head.

With your eyes downcast, you slump a bit in your chair, making it clear that you're not in the mood to talk. You don't know if you'll ever be.

You have nothing to say to them, and you're overcome with a sense of relief when your father sends you up to your room when you refuse to touch the food your mother made and join them in their dialogue.

**Placed in Advanced Hell: **

Homework is absolute hell for you. For a normal AP student, who wasn't plagued with other responsibilities other than schoolwork, homework would take no less than a few hours depending on their quickness. For you, the magnificent Troy Bolton, homework usually takes about eight hours.

You slide papers out of a folder labeled: _AP ENGLISH._ You haven't told anyone how the letters seem to jumble themselves across the page sometimes, making it difficult for you to study. It's embarrassing. Once you discovered that _weakness_ of yours, you became even more introverted in class, not wanting to become the teacher's guinea pig for the class as a way of punishment.

It takes you three hours and forty-seven minutes—after checking your cell phone several times—to finish reading the chapter and writing the one-page-analysis of each of the characters mentioned. You're actually proud of yourself that you beat your mental goal of completing your English in _at least_ four hours.

Now, it's time for AP calculus. _Why would math have an advanced placement class? Really, all math is the same worldwide. It's stupid, _you think to yourself bitterly. _Math is so pointless and overrated._

Those thoughts lead you to slamming your book open and solving the fifty-one problems assigned by your teacher. Though it's not as much of a struggle as English, this calculus is difficult nonetheless. To make matters worse, the side of your hand constantly drags over the completed problems, smudging the number two lead.

Frustrated, you slam the tip of your pencil down onto the paper and resolve the now illegible math problems. With fourteen problems—_how ironic, _you consider cynically—remaining, you put the papers inside of your book and shove it into your backpack.

"Screw it all," you murmur to yourself as you strip down into a white wife-beater, contrasting with your solid black boxers. You know that when it comes for time to hand in your homework, you'll be empty handed, staring at the teacher's disappointed gaze.

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><p><strong>Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! :) <strong>  
><strong>It would be wonderful if you all let me know what you're thinking about this.<strong>

_**Do you have any specific scenes you would like for me to write? **_

**I'm thinking about making this only two or three chapters... I never planned for this to be too long. **

**Once again, thank you so much for reading!**

**_- Jia Marie _**


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